Damage to the environment, wildlife, and public relations of the offending company caused by accidental oil spills can be significant in monetary terms, good will, and lost time. Once an oil spill has occurred, damage can occur over a period of time as the oil drifts or flows from the original spill site. Further, on land the oil can percolate or spread over terrain and through formations over time. The effectiveness, efficiency, and speed of clean-up response efforts can dramatically affect the final outcome of accidental oil spills. Specifically, reduced clean-up times and improved effective clean-up methods can reduce the damage to the environment and costs of clean-up. One effective way of determining how to improve these efforts is through mock oil spills in a controlled environment.
One method of simulating an oil spill is to provide a crude oil substitute to simulate spilled oil. Substitutes such as wood chips, cotton seed hulls, fire-fighting foam, other tracking buoy materials, pure canola oil, and computer simulations (PVT), have been used to approximate oil spill behavior. Unfortunately, the results obtained with these substitutes have not been satisfactory, since the oil simulant should behave like crude oil, i.e. have similar viscosity, density, adhesive/cohesive properties, and at the same exhibit minimal to substantially no negative impact on the environment.
Crude oil has colloidal structure, which affects its properties. The continuous phase typically comprises aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons. The dispersed phase is most often composed of asphaltenes or micelles. Asphaltenes are complex, high molecular weight aromatic compounds, which are non-soluble in aliphatic hydrocarbons. The asphaltene particles are stabilized with resins kept in solution by aromatic hydrocarbons. None of the above attempts to simulate crude oil have been successful in providing good approximations of crude oil behavior under spill conditions.
As such, improved materials and methods for simulating oil spills continue to be sought which would avoid the above mentioned problems and would be a beneficial advancement in the industry.